Toyota Makes Bumper Recycling Practical -Environmental Innovation in the Automotive Industry in 1995

Toyota Makes Bumper Recycling Practical -Environmental Innovation in the Automotive Industry in 1995
In June 1995, Toyota Motor Corporation established a technology to recycle used bumpers collected from dealers by pulverizing and water-dissolving them to be used as bumper material for new vehicles. This "bumper-to-bumper" recycling system was the first of its kind in Japan. At the time, the automotive industry was making progress with recycling in the production process, but the recycling of end-of-life vehicle parts was a largely untapped field. Toyota collected approximately 110,000 plastic bumpers per month and realized a process to remove the paint film and reuse them at the mass production level.
The early 1990s was a time when "global warming prevention" and "waste recycling" became international issues, and the environmental response of Japanese companies began to be questioned. Toyota placed the reduction of environmental impact in all processes of automobile manufacturing at the core of its corporate strategy.
This effort also became the starting point for later "eco-car" development and the zero-emission factory concept. Toyota's challenge in the mid-1990s provided the Japanese manufacturing industry as a whole with a concrete example of how to balance the environment and the economy.